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I’m a big fan of the three needle bind off for shoulder seams. I’m in this for the knitting, not the sewing! Fewer sewn seams = happier knitter. Josephine has slightly sloping shoulders instead of a straight across seam, so I needed to learn a new trick before I could use a three needle bind off. Short row shoulder shaping! I found a very good tutorial at Knitty. Worked like a charm. I couldn’t figure out how to simultaneously short row the neck shaping (I ended up finishing in the middle of the shoulder when I tried it), so the neck has a stairstep bindoff, but the shoulder is perfectly smooth. No problem; picking up stitches for the neck on a stairstep bindoff is easy. Here’s the back of Josephine:

And the shoulder:

Modifications so far: shorter on the lace portion at the bottom (reduced by 1/2 repeat) because I’m short and want it to end at hip length, and also I think I’ve arranged things so that the eyelet row that will hold the drawstring will be right under the bust, instead of on it. I think it will look more flattering that way.

On to the front! The other modification that I’m planning is to raise the V-neckline. I hate wearing layers; I don’t want to have to wear a camisole under this. The pattern as written has a very deep V-neck, suitable for a cami underneath, or else a sewn-in lace inset. Neither idea excites me, so I’m just going to start the V neck a bit higher. Fingers crossed!

On the piano front: I finished reading Katie Hafner’s A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould’s Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano last night. I’m not much of a Bach fan; my preferences tend more towards Mozart and Beethoven, but I do love all things piano. I didn’t know much about Gould other than that he recorded two definitive versions of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, early and late in his career. It was really interesting to learn about him as a person (beyond idiosyncratic) and the piano he loved, but even more interesting to learn about Verne Edquist, the piano technician who tuned and regulated the piano to make it into Gould’s dream come true. You can learn more about the book here:

So, a quick non-knitting post today. I’m spending mornings this week volunteering at a bike camp for special needs kids. I volunteered with this organization last year, too, and it was the most meaningful week of my summer. Bike First! is part of an amazing program called Lose the Training Wheels. It uses adapted bikes with a succession of rollers on the back to teach children to balance. Each successive roller is more tapered, requiring more balancing skills from the child. It’s not a far leap from the most tapered roller to a regular two-wheeled bike. I had tears in my eyes when my camper mastered a two-wheeler last year. Here’s her story.

Knitting is a fairly sedentary hobby, and I’m feeling pretty decrepit after three mornings of running behind bikes for three hours. But it’s wonderful, and it’s worth it. Please pass the ibuprofen!

Well, that was a thrill. My last post about stitch markers must have caught someone’s fancy, because all of a sudden I was number 2 on WordPress’s “What’s Hot: Fastest Growing WordPress.com Blogs” list on Saturday night. Not bad for someone who’s been blogging for less than three months.

Sunday morning I woke up and found that I was number 1! I was doing the happy dance, and took a screen shot, too.

By Sunday afternoon, I had fallen off the list, but it was fun while it lasted.

Back to your regularly scheduled knitting. I’ll try to post pictures of the Josephine Top with the very helpful stitch markers tomorrow. I missed my photo window of opportunity this afternoon.

Right now, I’m pretty chuffed because I purchased my own domain name, so now you can go directly to http://pdxknitterati.com and that’s me, right here. You no longer have to include wordpress in the addy. If you’re subscribed to this blog, please change the address subscription to https://pdxknitterati.com/feed It’s a good idea to update it so you don’t get lost in the redirect world. (That last bit was something I read while figuring out this process, and I assume there’s a good reason for it.)

The last time I ran into the term “Master of Your Domain” was on the pianoworld.com forum. There’s the MOYD Club in the Adult Beginners Forum; members pledge to practice daily, or come groveling with excuses. I made it through the year in 2006, but my practicing collapsed in December of 2007 due to, um, Ravelry. I’m not in it this year, but I am playing/practicing again. Balance…

Obligatory knit content: I knit in the car on the way out (no, I wasn’t driving). I’m trying to finish editing a washcloth sampler set that I wrote for a class a couple years ago, and I need pictures of the finished items to include in the pattern. I gave away all the samples as gifts, way back when. So I’m making new ones, but there are six of them, and I’ve only finished two…keep knitting! Still working on the second shetland shawl, too, just have to finish the border, and block it. I need to finish by next knit nite so I can return Helen’s blocking wires to her. A self-imposed deadline. I can’t wait to get these done and start something new. Why is it always faster to knit in our heads, than with our hands?

Posted onApril 29, 2008|Comments Off on Falling for falls, all over again (aka Gorge-ous)

Sunday was a beautiful spring day, and my friend Nova was in town from San Diego. We drove out into the Columbia River Gorge to look at waterfalls and wild flowers. I used to take the kids out to the falls to play in the water on hot summer days, but I hadn’t been out there in the past few years. (At ages 20 and 15, it’s just not the same.) It was fun to see the falls through fresh eyes. Wahkeena Falls is my favorite; Wahkeena means most beautiful. Too bad I didn’t bring the camera!

I did have the camera phone, though, and took this picture of Nova at Multnomah Falls:

And I tried to capture the shaft of sunlight coming down the hillside:

But it was much more beautiful in person. I’m so glad Nova came to visit! A perfect afternoon.

I was actually out in the Gorge last weekend, too. I was working at a women’s retreat at Menucha. Lovely, lovely place. Friday night’s sunset was spectacular through low curtain-y clouds. The sun is reflecting off the Columbia River down below.

It snowed Saturday morning! We had a visitor on the back deck during Saturday evening’s song circle:

The rose garden labyrinth at Menucha is beautiful, and should be finished in a few months. It’s come a long way since we visited last year.

From winter to spring in one week flat! April is an exciting month in Oregon.